At Erikub, there is only a little sand patch to drop the hook then settle back over deep lagoon water, and hope the wind does not shift.


Living on a peaceful mooring in Kwajalein, this boat had not experienced such weather for nearly a year and a half. Once dry hatches and port lights now leaked. A scupper on the port deck was dribbling sea water down behind the galley wall to pool at our feet in front of the stove. Although the mast boot was well sealed, a leak developed at the deck area dripping water from the ceiling onto cushions as the boat rocked to starboard then flung water onto the other cushions as it rolled to port. Too much was getting wet inside of the boat. We needed calm weather or a place to anchor so repairs could be made. Tacking to the south, the large atoll of Wotje was dead ahead. In Kwajalein, I worked with landowners who's homes are in Wotje. We would be well received but the complication in tactics was that we would be sailing down the west side of the atoll and the entrance through the reef is on the south east corner which to eventually get there would make for a 15 mile beat directly into the wind. That would be far too difficult.

We continued south past Wotje to the uninhabited Erikub Atoll. Sailing and gyrating from the open tumultuous ocean between Wotje and Erikub we flattened out in the protection of the long shallow western reef of Erikub. Defying the prevailing wind from the east, waves wrapped around the north end of the atoll and rolled to rumble, crumble and fall apart in the shallows. From inside the lagoon, waves had built up in the long fetch to smash headlong onto the same reef. But all became less violent as we continued south gaining greater protection. We were looking for the charted entrance into Erikub.